The calendar has officially flipped to spring which means I can reflect on my goals for winter.

When I set my winter wonder goals: what I most wanted out of winter were feelings of family togetherness and time well-spent, a sense of nesting and warmth, an enjoyment of the things that glow– candles, holiday lights, the moon on snow, incubation and then development of ideas, paring down of actual and theoretical things.

With that in mind, I came up with a to do list to guide our winter wonder. The funny thing about my lists like these is that I tend to not go back to them. Writing them informs my sensibilities and seeps into my subconscious, and whatever happens with the list happens. This year, the list I wrote really reflected the desires I had in my heart and, hence, was mostly accomplished. Here’s a review.

1. Go to the mountains and cut our Christmas tree. YES. We did it the Sunday after Thanksgiving, and it was such a fun, sweet thing to do. I hope this becomes a regular tradition.

2. See the McAdenville Lights. YES. We also took an international student from Ethiopia with us and it was fun to see Christmas Town USA through her eyes.

3. Drive around and see house lights. YES. I just love the lights.

4. Bake and decorate Christmas cookies. Yes. Although making sugar cookie dough, rolling it out, cutting it, etc. was much more fun in theory than it was in reality this past year. Maybe Happy won’t need such vigilant supervision next year.

5. Go to the town holiday parade. Yes. Always fun and some really impressive floats this year.

6. Enjoy the town holiday festival. Yes!

7. Donate toys with Happy. Yes! We selected a four year old girl from an Angel Tree and then Happy picked her gifts and rode with me to take them to the delivery location.

8. Wrap books to put under a little tree for Happy and open one book each night as we countdown through the holidays. Yes. This was probably my favorite holiday activity. We counted down from December 1st to Ethiopian Christmas (January 7th) with a nightly book. I bought most of his books on Scholastic for affordability and opening a book every night was what we all anticipated each day.

9. Have a hot stone massage. Yes. Because of a very generous gift card, I had two in fact.

10. Get a facial. Yes. Another generous gift card afforded me a spa half-day and a nice facial.

11. Give Happy new pjs on Christmas Eve. Yes! Such cute new jammies.

12. Watch Charlie Brown Christmas together as a family. Yes! We did this on Christmas Eve Eve (we also saw Frosty the Snowman and ate a big bowl of popcorn). Another tradition established, I hope.

13. Play in the snow* (if there is snow). Wouldn’t you know that I was out of town the one day that it snowed here? Alas, sad trombone no.

14. Have a family game night. Yes. As it turns out, we now have family game night a few times a week. From Trouble to Go Fish, we play games almost nightly after dinner.

15. Go to the movies as a family. No. Not from lack of desire. Just didn’t have any appropriate for Happy options.